Clotelle

Published in 1867, William Wells Browns Clotelle; or The Colored Heroine confronts racism and Afro-American slavery, which are presented as the foundation of a nation that prides itself on justice and democracy. The events play out in the background of the Civil War. A slave girl, Clotelle, is on a quest to save her daughter, whose father is her previous owner.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

'Clotelle; Or, The Colored Heroine, a tale of the Southern States; Or, The President's Daughter' is a novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. Brown, who escaped from slavery at the age of 20, published the book in London. The narrative of Clotel plays with history by relating the "perilous antebellum adventures" of a young mixed-race slave Currer and her two light-skinned daughters fathered by Thomas Jefferson. Because the mother is a slave, according to partus sequitur ventrem, which Virginia adopted into law, her daughters are born into slavery. The book includes "several subplots" related to other slaves, religion and anti-slavery. Currer, described as "a bright mulatto" (meaning light-skinned) gives birth to two "near white" daughters: Clotel and Althesa.

Major Characters in American Fiction is the perfect companion for everyone who loves literature--students, book-group members, and serious readers at every level. Developed at Columbia University's Center for American Culture Studies, Major Characters in American Fiction offers in-depth essays on the "lives" of more than 1,500 characters, figures as varied in ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, age, and experience as we are. Inhabiting fictional works written from 1790 to 1991, the characters are presented in biographical essays that tell each one's life story. They are drawn from novels and short stories that represent ever era, genre, and style of American fiction writing--Natty Bumppo of The Leatherstocking Tales, Celie of The Color Purple, and everyone in between.

Gathered together are three extraordinary books by renowned storyteller and memoirist Austin Clarke. ’Membering, Clarke’s breathtaking memoir, spans over fifty years of his life as a writer, chronicling his coming to Canada in the fifties, formative experiences with Malcolm X, Chinua Achebe, and LeRoi Jones, and bursting with cultural insights and poignant memories from a narrative master. In The Polished Hoe, winner of the Giller Prize and the 2003 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, when an elderly Bimshire village woman calls the police to confess to a murder, the result is a shattering all-night vigil that brings together elements of the African diaspora in one epic sweep. Set on the post-colonial West Indian island of Bimshire in 1952, The Polished Hoe unravels over the course of 24 hours but spans the lifetime of one woman and the collective experience of a society informed by slavery. Choosing His Coffin is a selection of Clarke’s finest work from more than forty years of storytelling, drawing on his Caribbean roots and his years in Canada. These stories range in theme from growing up in West Indian society and what it means to be black in both the United States and Canada to surviving as an immigrant in a predominantly Anglo-Saxon culture.